REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TOKYO -- Indonesia and Japan have agreed to cooperate to increase investment and promotion among the two countries.
The agreement was part of a memorandum of understanding signed by Head of Indonesia's Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), Franky Sibarani, and Chairman and CEO of Japan's External Trade Organization (Jetro) Hiroyuki Ishige at Hotel Imperial, here on Monday.
"There are two things we expect from Jetro: promotion and quality of Japanese investment in Indonesia," Sibarani affirmed after the signing ceremony.
He noted that Indonesia was also optimistic that Jetro can serve as a bridge for increasing the quality of investment and inviting new investors to Indonesia.
He hoped that Jetro's investment in Indonesia could be increased in terms of quality.
"Japan has, so far, been known for its investment in the automotive and electronic sectors only, while the potential of its companies in other areas was huge and could be diverted to Indonesia, while at the same time, we also have huge resource potentials," he claimed.
He also pointed out that among other areas, some Japanese companies focusing on the maritime sector have expressed interest to invest in fish canning and shipbuilding in Indonesia.
Franky highlighted the importance of extension and improvement of the quality of investment from Japan as it is one of the biggest investors after the Netherlands and Britain.
"Some have also expressed interest in the field of agriculture, including the production of sorbitol and animal husbandry," he noted.
He affirmed that its move to encourage more investment in other sectors did not mean that Indonesia would pay lesser attention to the investment cooperation, which has been developed so far, but would even boost it, while referring to the investment cooperation in the automotive sector.
He stated that Indonesia will continue to invite automotive component manufacturers to come to Indonesia.
"So far, we have imported several types of automotive components, and this has eroded our foreign exchange reserves, and so, if only these imported components could be manufactured here, it would be very good because component industries are an important pillar of the automotive industry," he claimed.
He hoped that the cooperation with Jetro to increase the total Japanese investment in Indonesia this year will reach up to US$5.4 billion.
In the ASEAN region, Indonesia is ranked third after Singapore and Thailand as a destination for Japanese investment.
Franky noted that the total realization of Japanese investment in Indonesia from January to October 2014 reached US$3.7 billion, and the trend was rising significantly, marked by an increase in the total Japanese investment during the period between November 2014 and February 2015 to reach US$1.5 billion.
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